


Never So Black and White

by thetransgirlwhoneverwas



Series: Fictober 2019 [3]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 23:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20882762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetransgirlwhoneverwas/pseuds/thetransgirlwhoneverwas
Summary: Two previous companions to the Doctor meet for dinner to discuss their lives and who they are now.





	Never So Black and White

Ace McShane looked across the table at Jo Jones utterly demolishing her vegetable pie, and not for the first time marvelled at how, despite not being as young as she used to be, Jo Jones was still so full of life that didn’t appear to be going anywhere. She picked up her fork and took another bite of her own vegetable pie and decided Jo had been right: this pub was the right choice. Ace could have taken her anywhere for their “Informal Meeting of the Doctor’s Former Companions” as Jo had called it in her letter, but she’d let Jo choose the venue, and so Jo had taken them to her favourite pub; the same pub she had eaten with her Doctor not so long ago during some instance of temporal instability. Ace often lost track of how many of those there were.

“How’s the pie?” Jo had stopped herself for a moment to break though Ace’s distraction.

“It’s great,” Ace replied, still more zoned out than she should have been, and regretting how insincere she sounded. She shook her head back to reality. “Sorry, I’m on another world. Loving it!”

“Oh?” Jo asked. “Which world are you on right now?”

“Scutari,” Ace replied, her mind drifting again. She wondered how Hex was getting on.

“It’s like that, isn’t it?” Jo said, understanding in her voice. “When you used to travel with the Doctor. You’re so used to never staying in the same place, that even when you are, you’re not really, are you?”

“Somehow, that makes sense,” Ace agreed, and took another bite of her pie. She found she was enjoying it more and more with every mouthful, though clearly not quite so much as Jo, who had already almost finished hers.

“Still,” Jo continued, “it’s not as if we’re living pointless lives. Did I ever tell you about the time I sailed down the Yangtze in a tea chest?”

“No,” Ace chuckled and raised her eyebrows. “You went down the Yangtze in a tea chest?”

“And I’ll never let anyone forget it,” Jo giggled. “Still, look at you though! A Charitable Earth! Look how much you’ve achieved since the Doctor!”

“Yeah,” Ace replied, distant again, and suddenly her head felt fuzzy for a moment, as if reaching for a memory that should have been there. Something about the Doctor. Something about Gallifrey. If only she could remember.

“You’re a successful woman, I’d say,” Jo opined, and took another bite of her pie. Then another. Then another. Then another. Ace laughed, but there was no mirth in it.

“You don’t think so?” Jo inquired, tilting her head slightly. “You don’t think you’ve found success?”

“It’s not that,” Ace answered. “Just…”

“All I said was that you were a successful woman,” Jo replied, tilting her head to the other side now.

Ace sighed. “It still feels strange being called that, you know?”

“What, being called a woman?”

Ace nodded.

Jo was quiet for a moment, and took the opportunity in the silence to have another bite of pie. Finally she spoke up, having not quite finished her mouthful. “Would you like me to stop?”

“I don’t know,” Ace said. “I just...in all my life, before the Doctor, with him, afterwards, I’ve never felt like being a girl or a woman...fit me right, you know? Like it’s not quite...me.”

“Would you be more comfortable as a man?” Jo asked, and though Ace initially thought she was mocking her she saw in Jo’s eyes she was genuine.

“No, that doesn’t work either,” she replied finally. “I’m sort of...neither, you know? Like, being called “she”, that’s fine, that works, but calling myself a woman feels...wrong. I don’t know.”

Jo contemplated for a few seconds, then shrugged. “So you’re neither a man nor a woman. Okay,” and she ate the remainder of her pie. Once again, Ace thought she was making fun, but a look at Jo told her that she was not. She was serious. She was accepting this with absolutely no problems. Ace didn’t know what she had expected - she hadn’t expected this topic to come up at all - but Jo was taking it entirely in her stride.

“And that’s...not a problem?” Ace ventured cautiously.

“Of course not!” Jo answered enthusiastically. “If there’s anything I learned with the Doctor, it’s not to judge, especially since you don’t know what anyone else is feeling.”

Ace smiled.

“And also that we as humans have a lot to learn about accepting things we don’t understand. Things are never so black and white as sometimes we like to pretend they are, even when they seem like they should be obvious.”

“Do you? Understand, I mean?” Ace asked.

Jo took a deep breath. “If I’m honest, Ace, no, I don’t. I’ve always felt secure in calling myself a woman. But you don’t, and even if I don’t understand, I don’t need to. I just need to respect you, and Lord knows I do.”

Ace smiled again, even bigger and more genuinely than previously. “So, if I were to call myself nonbinary…?”

It was Jo’s time to smile, not that she’d really stopped smiling since meeting Ace to begin with. “So you’ve thought of this before?”

“I mean, yeah,” Ace confirmed. “But I kinda felt like I needed...validation? Which is weird for me, I normally don’t care what anyone thinks, but with something so basic and fundamental as my gender…”

“Ace, let me tell you,” Jo started, and Ace saw even more wisdom and life in her eyes than she’d seen all day. “You don’t need anyone’s validation but your own.”

Ace smiled again, certainly not for the last time that evening. “Thanks, Jo. Really. I weirdly think I needed to hear that.”

“My pleasure...oh,” Jo realised. “I don’t think I ever caught your real name, I’ve just heard everyone call you Ace.”

“I had one, way back,” Ace replied. “The name my parents gave me, but I don’t really think it’s me. My name’s Ace.”

“Absolutely, Ace,” Jo beamed even more warmly. “How did you find the pie?”

“It was wicked,” Ace said, sincerely. “So, tell me about your Doctor? I gather he was an earlier incarnation than mine.”

“Oh, he was such a gentleman,” Jo replied immediately, which made Ace laugh. The idea of her Doctor being a gentleman was too much. They talked long into the evening, about their Doctors, about their adventures, about their friends. Finally, when the pub closed and they parted ways to head home, Jo Jones and Ace McShane shook hands and promised to do this again soon.


End file.
